


between the daylight and the deep sea

by pendules



Series: between the daylight and the deep sea [1]
Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Bisexuality, Coming Out, First Kiss, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-20
Updated: 2015-06-20
Packaged: 2018-04-05 08:49:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4173564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pendules/pseuds/pendules
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>The daylight is too stark to be anything but reality. But the truth is still there. He wonders if this is what it feels like to take something out of a dream.</i>
</p><p>Adam comes to terms with his truth, with help from Cabeswater and Gansey.</p>
            </blockquote>





	between the daylight and the deep sea

**Author's Note:**

> There's a tiny mention of past unrequited Adam/Gansey.

It's not some kind of awakening when it happens. It's just realising a truth that's always been inside him, that is slowly revealing itself. It's realising that things he once thought impossible are now slightly closer to reality.

Somehow, Ronan's less real and more real than he's ever been. He's himself, finally, he's all his secrets manifested into something beautiful and terrible, and he shouldn't exist. But Adam shouldn't either.

Maybe they don't. Maybe their world is the hidden crevices between dream and reality.

Maybe it's easier to be unafraid there.

*

He spends entire afternoons communing with the trees. 

He learns the forest as well as he can until something new and different reveals itself, almost like it doesn't want to be known, or like it doesn't want him to feel too safe within it.

Sometimes, he just walks and walks, from season to season and back, until he forgets anything else exists.

Sometimes, he lies on the grass and dreams with his eyes open.

Sometimes, it's hard to remember that his life is what it is, hard to remember Gansey's death and Blue's curse. Death doesn't exist here. He's not sure love does either.

That thought makes him uncomfortable for a moment.

_That's not what you want, is it?_

He's not sure if they really said it, or if it's his own voice echoing back to him.

*

Adam wakes up and it's all settled heavily inside him, like puzzle pieces taking shape. He can't even remember getting back from Cabeswater; it's like he just stepped from one dream directly into another.

The daylight is too stark to be anything but reality. But the truth is still there. He wonders if this is what it feels like to take something out of a dream.

He lets himself think it, once, twice. Just to test how the words feel.

He considers saying it out loud, but he's afraid if he does, it would be stolen from him, he won't be able to take it back. Like if he put it out into the world, he'd never be able to retrieve it.

He can keep it his for just a little longer.

It's like a dream or a story: the longer you keep it inside you, the more it grows and grows and gets a life of its own, until it doesn't belong to you anymore, until you can't contain it.

*

It's the first time they're alone in the forest. It doesn't feel like they're alone, though. Not like when Ronan's sleeping on the floor next to his bed or when they're in his car. This feels safer, even if Cabeswater just wants him to feel that way right now.

Ronan shoves a branch upwards so they can pass and Adam catches his eyes for a second before he ducks under it. He hears Ronan follow him, and without turning around, he says it.

"I think I want to kiss you."

Ronan's almost at his side again.

"Okay." There's no inflection to it; it's like he'd said something mundane, like _I think I want pizza_. Or something that's an undeniable fact, like _We're both impossible creatures in an impossible place._

"What does that mean?"

"It means 'okay'."

"Does it mean it's okay that I want to kiss you or you _want_ me to kiss you?"

"God, Parrish, it just means 'okay'."

"Why are you so _frustrating_?"

"I don't know, why do you keep asking questions you already know the answer to?"

"But — I don't."

"Really?" Ronan's stopped in his tracks now, and Adam turns around to look at him. He looks like he could just stay right there forever, become a permanent part of the forest, let it grow around him; he's always such a solid, real thing, not afraid to take up space wherever he goes, and Adam kind of hates him then for his conviction. Adam's still not sure of his place in any of this, in the forest he gave his free will to, in Gansey's quest, in Ronan's life.

"No," he says finally, because Ronan's stubborn enough to not move until he answers him.

"Well, you haven't been paying attention then. And I thought you were supposed to be the smart one." He rolls his eyes and continues walking; sometimes it feels like the forest is making a path for him all on its own.

Maybe Adam has to find a way to do the same, to detach all the brambles choking his heart and set it free.

*

 _Tell me what to do_ , he asks, lying in bed that night, sleepless and wired.

Silence.

He gets up, goes down to the office, dials Gansey's number.

Of course he picks up right away.

"Hey, you okay?" he asks in his soft, early-morning voice. He can't know anything, not really; Ronan's probably gone back to the Barns after dropping him off and he wouldn't tell him even if he was at Monmouth.

"Not really." _My best friend's going to die, and I think I have a crush on his other best friend, and the mystical forest I sacrificed myself to won't give me any straight answers about it._

"Is it Cabeswater?" He knows he's trying to sound unworried, for Adam's sake.

"Actually, it's pretty normal. By our standards, anyway."

"Okay, tell me." When Gansey says that, in that tone, no one can resist spilling their guts to him. It's slightly unbelievable that all three of them are currently managing to keep terrible things from him.

"I think I like boys. _Too_ , I mean. _As well as_." It's not as weird as he thought it would be, to say it. It feels right, the way wanting to kiss Ronan felt right.

"Oh," he says. Just _oh_. And then, "I thought this might happen."

"Why'd you —" And then, his own _Oh_. "Was it because of _us_?"

That's another truth that's been revealed during his hours on his own, surgically removing pieces of himself and his life, until all that was left was his bleeding, aching heart.

"I — I didn't think you even knew. Back then. So I didn't say anything." 

And fuck, how is it possible that Gansey can see through all of them so well when he wants to, but remain so blind to other things. 

"It's not — That wasn't real." He knows that now absolutely; it was the idea of Gansey that he'd been attracted to, the idea of something bright and unattainable and incorruptible. That idea's disintegrated over time. Now, all that remains is _his_ Gansey, so very young and _human_ and more real than both him and Ronan. Sometimes it's all too easy to imagine him dying at eighteen.

"But Ronan is?" And he didn't even need to say it.

"Maybe. Could be."

"You told him?" Gansey asks, businesslike.

"Yeah."

"And?"

"I don't think he thinks I'm ready. I don't _know_ if I'm ready," he admits.

"For Ronan? Or for anyone?"

The more he thinks about it, the more he realises it never was going to be anyone else.

"I don't want to hurt him."

"Just tell him the truth."

It's what he's been looking for his whole life, in some way, the truth about himself and the world and his place in it. The way Gansey's been looking for Glendower. Cabeswater might lie to him for their own purposes, but Gansey won't. Ronan won't.

It's time to give some truth back. 

*

They're in the kitchen at the Barns and Adam's studying a coffeemaker that wasn't there before, that doesn't plug into anything.

"Did you —"

"You can have it if you want." It's casual, but it's the first time he's actually directly offered him something. Given him the chance to say no.

He doesn't say anything, doesn't say, _We can share it, maybe_. It feels like they've been sharing so many things recently.

"Is _this_ an answer?" Adam asks. It's not a ring, not a promise, but it's something. Ronan communicates in gestures or not at all, most of the time.

"What?"

"I asked you something and you didn't answer."

"Adam —"

"Just say it. I want you to say it." Words have power ( _I will be your hands, I will be your eyes_ ), whether it's a wish or a confession or a name. Adam wants to feel something change inside him, wants to remember this even when everything else is gone.

"Both. The answer's both. Happy?"

"No," Adam says, but he's smirking.

*

They drive back to St. Agnes. He doesn't get out when Ronan stops.

He tells him, abruptly, "You can stay. I mean —"

"Okay."

*

Adam's just listening to him breathing. It's a different kind of sleepless. The kind when you don't want the night to end. When you want to live in the space between dark and light. 

_In. Out. In. Out._ And then suddenly it starts getting erratic and he's sitting up on the floor and gasping.

Adam slides off the mattress and onto the floor, instinctively reaching out, hands resting on his shoulders.

"You okay?" There's no blood as far as he can see in the dim light. But that doesn't mean it wasn't bad.

"It wasn't — It was like the mask. It wasn't _you_."

"It's okay." They don't move for a few moments, Adam still touching him, just looking at each other. He doesn't look scared anymore.

Finally, he stands up, but he reaches back down for Ronan's hand.

"Come on, get in," he says, nodding towards the bed.

He hears Ronan swallow audibly before he's accepting the proffered hand and pulling himself up.

Adam lies facing the wall with Ronan turned away from him, back-to-back. He's so still, but Adam can feel the heat of his body, through the sheets, through the sliver of air between. 

He slowly rolls over until he's facing his back.

Ronan's skin is pale in the morning light, the lines of his tattoo in sharp contrast. He can't _not_ extend his hand to touch. 

He feels him shiver, but he doesn't move further away.

Adam gets closer, until his toes are brushing the back of one of Ronan's bare legs, until he can press his forehead to his shoulder, one hand gliding over his hip. He slowly kisses down his back, tracing the knobs of his spine with his other hand.

One of Ronan's hands comes up to rest on his own where it's lying on his hip. He pulls away a little, just to make sure this is okay. He's still breathing steadily under his hands although he hasn't looked at him. 

He wonders if he should've waited. And then Ronan's turning over in his arms right into a breathless kiss.

It's desperate and clumsy and hot and _perfect_. Ronan's hands are in his hair and there's so much skin, everywhere, suddenly. Skin to touch and bite and mark. After a few minutes of exploring each other with wild abandon, Ronan pins him down by his wrists and gets on top of him. His lips feel swollen and his hair's probably a mess and he's going to have bruises, on his wrists, his hips, but Ronan kisses him slowly and lavishly now. When he pulls away, Adam chases his lips like he's dying for it, licks inside his mouth, drawing out a long moan, and Ronan lets him go so that he can flip them over and pay him back in kind.

*

Adam wakes up with his mouth against Ronan's shoulder, their limbs all tangled up in the sheets, bite-marks on his throat, and a coffeemaker at the foot of his bed. 

"Hey," Ronan says, voice rough from sleep but tinged with something bright.

"Hey," he says, feeling liquid warmth pooling in his stomach. He's probably smiling like an idiot too.

Ronan's slipping away from his grasp now, and he thinks, _No_ , kind of absently, but he's too content to move.

"Want coffee?"

"Are you this nice to all your conquests?" he asks sleepily, watching him walk away still in nothing but his underwear.

"Fuck off," Ronan tells him, but he can't hide the affection in his voice either.

*

He's frowning at his reflection a couple hours later. "I don't know how to hide this."

"No one cares," Ronan says, coming up behind him and wrapping an arm around his waist. He kisses the nape of his neck and Adam shudders, leans into it.

"Who _marks_ people anyway?" he asks, disgruntled.

"I'm pretty sure I have scratches on my back," Ronan says casually. Adam goes red and avoids his eyes in the mirror.

*

When they walk into Monmouth, Gansey takes one look at the both of them and starts grinning.

"Oh, _shut up_."


End file.
